After reading "Poor Charlie's Almanack" and then binge-reading the Buffet's annual report letters from the earliest to the latest, I picked up "fondness" WB express for the Japanese companies which Berkshire was investing in (as well as his sorrow over the limits imposed on on the the amount he was buying.

On April 7, 2025 I sold my Berkshire Hathaway "B" shares and split the proceeds evenly between the five Japanese stocks owned by BRK (purchased in Japanese yen through IB)

Berkshire Hathaway B shares have appreciated about 7.9% since April 7, 2025.
On April 7, 2025, the closing price was approximately 457.20 USD, and today (January 16, 2026) the price is 493.51 USD

The performance of the Japanese shares varied:

Ticker---->>-->Company-->-->Purchase Price-->Current Price-->Appreciation

8001:tyo-->Itochu Corp-->-->¥1,675-->-->-->-->¥2,116-->-->-->26.33%
8002:tyo-->Marubeni Corp--->¥2,680-->-->-->-->¥5,199-->-->-->93.98%
8031:tyo-->Mitsui-->-->---->¥2,859-->-->-->-->¥5,156-->-->-->80.32%
8053:tyo-->Sumitomo-->-->-->¥3,601-->-->-->-->¥6,288-->-->-->74.61%
8058:tyo-->Mitsubishi-->--->¥3,370-->-->-->-->¥4,055-->-->-->20.34%

I'm not sure which of the pundits at BRK was responsible for these choices (Buffet, Munger or other), but the performance of the worst of them, over the last three quarters, was nearly triple that of Berkshire's stock (assuming A and B roughly advanced in parallel). Now, I didn't cherry pick which stock to buy - I bought the whole basket, basically the idea that the Japanese economy (which these companies act as an ETF of) would grow faster than BRK (or the S&P for that matter).

Just thought it was an interesting take on using some of the best stock pickers in the world to point the way.

Jeff